August 2021

16 Buckden Roundabout August 2021 The Vine Sue, first things first can you share a bit of the background and history on the Vine? The barn end (nearest the A1 roundabout) was built around 1478 as a coaching inn and Brewery called La Hyne and at that point the pub end was an orchard so there is an assumption they were making cider. The actual pub section was added on in 1731 at the same time the George was built and was used as an inn for the coachmen and servants while the gentry would stay at the George. It ’ s unknown as to what year it actually became a pub but it ’ s safe to say it ’ s been around for a while! How long have you run the Vine? I worked part time in the bar previously but took over as man- ager in Jan 2020, seven weeks before the first lockdown!! Originally it was just a temporary contract while the leasehold- ers looked to find new management. However, there was little interest as it needed a lot of work doing and it hadn ’ t been doing very well. The leaseholders saw the potential and want- ed to keep it, so I agreed to stay for a long - term contract. I own the kitchen separately and run that as my own business as they didn ’ t do much food previously. What is your background? I ’ m a qualified chef, it ’ s in my blood as my mum was a chef so I ’ ve been in kitchens from around the age of 13 and have a lot of friends and family in the industry. I qualified as a pastry chef originally but over the years I ’ ve worked in Italian, Greek and fine dining restaurants. I ’ ve actually been a chef before in Buckden as I used to work at the George until about three years ago after which I ’ d planned to hang up my cheffing whites for good to concentrate on my other career as a manu- facturing project manager. However, fate had different ideas and I ’ ve found myself back in the kitchen which is my true pas- sion. The last 18 months have obviously been an incredibly tough time for most businesses with hospitality being especially badly hit, how have COVID times been for you at the Vine? Really challenging unsurprisingly, hospitality hasn ’ t been an easy industry to be in and it ’ s been a pretty stressful time. Fundamentally we haven ’ t been able to operate as a pub for a lot of the time or be the community hub that we aspire to be. Our first big blow came when the freeholders of the pub pulled their funding for a full refurb due to the pandemic. The place desperately needed work doing so I ended up having to do a phase one makeover myself during the first lockdown with some help from friends and family. There ’ s still plenty more we want to do but we were able to make some changes to the structure of the bar, strip it all back, repaint etc, replaced all the furniture in the pub and refurbed the whole kitchen so we could start doing food. The 10pm curfew also hit us pretty hard as we are busiest at the weekend and 10pm is usually when people start hitting the spirits so that ’ s an important hour for us. We ’ d also find that for people who get home from work later, they wouldn ’ t be bothered to come out if we were closing at 10pm. The other tough ruling was the substantial meal rule as it was so unclear what that meant and I found it really stressful to make sure we were adhering to the rules. Any new announcement was a pretty anxiety inducing time as we just didn ’ t know what we were going to be hit with next. It was difficult to plan more than a week ahead for fear of a sub- stantial rule change. The nature of hospitality means you have a lot of perishables and at one point we had to throw away 800 pints worth of beer as it had gone off! I heard an interview with Tom Kerridge where he said the silver lining of lockdown for hospitality has been having some (Continued on page 17) Support Our Buckden Businesses... The last 18 months has been an incredibly tough time for businesses trying to navigate multiple lockdowns, ever - changing rules and the general uncertainty around what the future holds. With everything now opening up again and trying to get back to some kind of normality it ’ s more important than ever that we show some love and support to the incredible array of businesses we have on our doorstep. On that basis we ’ re pleased to introduce a new feature into the Roundabout where we will take the time each month to profile, celebrate and appreciate one of the wonderful businesses of Buckden in a bid to remind us all to spend local where we can. So grab a cuppa, sit down and take five minutes to find out what ’ s been happen- ing at The Vine, as our interviewer, Rachel Miller, talks to the Vine manager, Sue McGrath … Support Buckden Businesses